


The Honoured Damnation

by Sister of Silence (Orcbait)



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Misuse of Alien Artefacts, Misuse of Psychic Powers, Object Insertion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 09:41:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orcbait/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Driven onto the path of the radical through a well-intentioned mistake, Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Vallerie Desjardin finds herself hunted down by her erstwhile colleagues as she resorts to keeping the company of traitor Astartes in order to survive. By the grace of her own planning she is reunited with the only ally left to her, and by the will of the gods everything turns out just as planned. Or does it...?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic is in part a commission by and a gift for my W40k buddy Aun, who had the temerity to request a short story concerning our cantankerous Tzeentch/Slaanesh-confused RPG-characters from our current Black Crusade campaign. Nearly all characters mentioned in this fanfic are RPG-characters and belong to their respective owners. 
> 
> NOTE: A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it. And please, share this story freely but credit me and link back to me. Thank you!
> 
> Aun found Vallerie a theme song, cheers!  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IHFVn0sv14

 

It was a place both outside time, and in all times at once; a vortex of all the corners of reality and all the layers of the multiverse: ever moving, ever changing, it encompassed the grand scheme of things. Astride the temporal chaos of its own creation sat a creature unknowable, a calculated sentience more ancient than the omniverse it played. Its mighty reptilian body was of an unfathomable size; covered in shimmering scales like mirrors reflecting the variances of reality and bristling feathers the multi-hued colours of existence as its great feathered wings held all of creation in his shadow. He had uncountable heads, all different and yet all the same, like a thousand raindrops on a mirror. Always new heads appeared and old ones disappeared among the mesmerizing streams of reality around him, in an endless dance of replacement unstoppable as the tides. He observed and manipulated the flows as a hydromancer does the streams, steering the perishable ones to ends he deemed fit. He is the ancient vulture lord, the great world serpent, the polycephalic dragon of creation, all these names and more belonged to him. For he was change itself, and time was his nature made manifest.

A sudden, shrieking roar bellowed through the unspace as one of the heads snapped from its stream of reality. It was an old head, its bald skin mottled and sagging with age, its hooked beak scarred and mutilated, and its rows of dagger-like teeth incomplete. Yet its luminescent eyes blazed with power and flashed with anger through dazzling hues ever changing. It swivelled around until it found what it sought, swaying gently like a predator aiming for the kill. And when it swooped down the ever blending stream of reality rippled as it was pinned.

This reality was vaguely reminiscent of a living space, but only in the loosest of senses, like a veneer of reality over a pulsing, living thing. The atmosphere was warm and moist like hot breath and rich in pheromones of the most pleasing, mind befuddling kind. Cries pierced the cloying silence; shrieks of pleasure and moans of pain. They came from a small creature with the fae beauty of the Eldar, who was savaged by a great beast of unknowable shape. The graceful, feminine thing was pinned on her stomach, writhing under her molester’s relentless assault. The beast knew of no stopping, pounding into its victim without pause; its many tentacles entangling the frail figure, its long tongues lolling and dripping saliva as its rippling muscles bulged and flexed under the act.

“Brother,” the vulture spoke, his voice resonating with the echoes of time as he grew swiftly weary of the scene. It stopped abruptly.

“Spoil sport,” a singsong voice returned, the unnatural lilting both a grace and a scourge to the ears. The beast removed itself, and the small creature struggled up with great reluctance. It could not be properly described with a single pronoun, and yet all suited it just fine, for such was its nature. His form was fae and ethereal, beautiful and revolting at once. Her face was soft and androgynous; his chest marked by full breasts and yet she possessed a male gender, still erect with denied pleasure. She turned to the beast, which loomed behind him, waiting. With a casual wave of her hand, the beast burst into violet flames. It bellowed and thrashed in agony as its flesh melted like candle wax from wicks that were its bones, which in turn crumbled to dust and scattered on a non-existent wind. The small one shuddered and moaned at the sight, the pleasure she ever craved once more satisfied. Only then did he turn to her most unwelcome visitor.

“As untimely as ever,” she chortled, humour alight on his androgynous face. Her form was ever moulding to his pleasures, ever moulding to what she wanted. His legs distended into back-jointed ones, hooves instead of heels clacking through the hazy silence as his breasts slowly disappeared and her masculine gender grew larger yet. His visage turned even more pointed, fae-like, her ears long as a bat’s as he smiled a smile so broad no true features could ever make it, revealing rows of pointed, pearly teeth.

“I have plans with him,” the seemingly disembodied vulture’s head stated, glowering down at the slender, gender defying creature before him.

“You always have plans,” the younger one retorted as she rolled his eyes. “Your plans bore me.” 

“Why him?” the great vulture demanded.

The younger one shrugged and answered the question with a question: “Why not?”

“I have plans with him!” He repeated. Why must the miscreant meddle with everything?

“So you told me and I care not.” She chuckled, his form once more blending to her wish. His waist grew thinner, her legs smoother and a tail grew from the end of his spine.

“This is _your_ doing,” the elder of the two stated. “Undo it!”

“But the mortal,” he replied petulantly as she pulled a face. “Her acts with him greatly please me!”

“I have plans for this immortal son,” the vulture retorted, its luminescent eyes alight with anger. “Find her another to play your petty games with.”

Her shimmering, cat-like eyes grew large and moist, and his lower lip trembled preposterously. “But this one is _so willing!_ ”

“You _made_ him so!” the vulture roared as the ever changing fire finally spewed from his eyes.

She held her pout for a moment longer, then dropped it and chortled heartily. “You cannot change _me_ , brother,” he replied between chuckles, amusement sparkling in her almond eyes. “That irritates you, doesn’t it?” he added, the other’s anger sliding off him like so much rain from a window pane. She turned around then and began to walk away. He had grown tired with the other’s company; she wished to see her new toys play even more now.

“What did you do with the tome?” the vulture demanded to his retreating back. The greater lust deamon had stolen it from his pawn, had lured him away from his task with its taking.

She cocked her head, his eyebrows arching up as she glanced over his shoulder. “Tome?” she asked, and an amused expression once more split his face. “Why ever would _I_ take a _tome_?”

  


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It had been a close thing, the confrontation with her erstwhile colleague and his Astartes kill team, but they had all made it back in more or less one piece. Thothmes had a hole in his chest that allowed one to see through him like a macabre starport, but Memnon had remarked the Rubric could easily be mended.

Vallerie leaned heavily on the cogitator assembly in front of her, her hands braced on either side of it. She was quite exhausted; it had been an eventful day. When Memnon turned away from the tactical holo-display and started off the bridge without a word, Vallerie pushed herself away from her improvised support with a sigh and moved to follow him. It was always a trick to keep pace with the Astartes, let alone catch up to them, but her weariness of the day’s adventure did not help. She was in no mood to trot.

It was not long before the Sorcerer noticed her walking behind him and he slowed his pace a fraction to let her catch up. Once she appeared at his side he reached out and roughly grabbed the back of her head, his ceramite-shod fingers entangling themselves into her long, blonde hair as he brought her in close, the clang of their chestplates meeting loud in the quiet corridor.

“I hope you didn’t expect to get off quite so easily...” he said, his tone both amused and suggestive despite the vox distortion of his helmet.

“I wouldn’t dare,” Vallerie remarked, half a smile cracking through her weary expression. She was too tired to balance on the tips of her armoured boots to keep herself from being held up in this fashion. Memnon did not reply. Instead, he elbowed the door to the Captain’s quarters open and unceremoniously dragged the woman inside with him, kicking it closed behind him with a resounding slam. Unfortunately, this left Thothmes and Trimestus, the two Rubrics that followed him like twin shadows, locked outside. They patiently stood there for hours, forgotten. Thothmes cocked his head to the side, once.

  


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“That was so unnecessary,” Vallerie chuckled once inside, reaching for Memnon’s helmet and unlocking it. Her own armour afforded her some height beyond her own, and it was just enough to reach it. The hermetic seal of the ancient power armour broke with a hiss of pressurized air that stirred Vallerie’s loose bangs. As she had expected, the ornate helmet revealed the Sorcerer’s quietly amused visage. He was not quite as tall as Radisson, or as broad in the shoulders and heavy in the arms as Malish, but there was something in those eyes... something she recognised. There was no bleak madness there, no boundless rage, none of the trappings of Chaos... She fancied that, across the past ten millennia, they had never changed.

Vallerie’s smile twitched a little then. “Are you just going to stare at me from your lonely heights, or what?” she remarked, giving the gorget of his chestguard a tug.

“And what if I bring you up to my heights?” Memnon asked in return, easily lifting the Inquisitor up to just above his eye height by bracing a hand to the rear plate of her light power armour, his other gauntlet still entangled in her blonde hair.

“Who knows?” Vallerie mused as she glanced down at him. She took his broad jaw in her hands and pressed a kiss to his grinning lips. “You might regret it,” she added then, their noses all but together as their gazes crossed. Memnon’s grin curved into a positive smirk, his eyes squinting slightly in amusement. “I don’t think so.” Before she could reply he reunited their lips, returning her peck hungrily as he kept her head in place. 

Time passed, but neither cared for counting it. Until, after a while, Vallerie spoke up once more. “Memnon,” Vallerie said between their lips, and broke away from the lengthy kiss. A scowl briefly creased the Sorcerer’s features but Vallerie ignored his displeased expression and leaned back in his embrace to unlock part of her cuirass. The scavenged armour had not been designed with a feminine occupant in mind and thus there was some vacant space below her breasts and in front of her stomach. It was from there that she produced the little book. A small and unassuming thing it was, its leather sleeve worn and its pages thumbed like a well-loved diary. It was not much to look at. However, what piqued Memnon’s curiosity more than anything was the fact that she did not keep it with her other tomes in the bundle at her waist. What made this filthy, unimposing thing different?

“Could you keep it for me?” Vallerie asked as she proffered it to him. The booklet was small even in her hands. Memnon, who had still been holding her up to him, put her down.

“What is it?” he returned, it was obvious to him the little tome was more than it let on, cloaked in insignificance as it was.

“The Revelations of Ezekyle,” Vallerie replied, and Memnon’s eyebrows raised a fraction in disbelief.

“A copy?” he asked. He had heard of the apocryphal writings, but had not expected them in such an unassuming wrapping. He had searched for them, in the way he pursued all ancient tomes considered vanished to the woes of time. Knowledge was power, lost knowledge even more so.

“No,” she said simply. Something of the voracity with which Memnon regarded all lost lore surfaced from the depths of his dark eyes. She suppressed a shiver. He wanted it, she could tell. It made her want to put the booklet away again, she must ke--- she resisted it. The hatred that had been poured into the words it contained had marked it, stained it, given it a rudimentary sentience of its own. Above all else it wanted to illuminate people; it wanted to destroy them with its insights. She had read it, and it had broken something inside her, instilled a doubt that could never be undone. She loathed it and yet she could not bring herself to destroy it. She’d kept it for far too long. She held it up to him once more, and when he grasped it, it took all her willpower to let go. Even when she had relinquished it, the urge to snatch it back was there.

“I see,” Memnon mused, suddenly thoughtful, his gaze transfixed on the small tome cradled in his gauntlet. After a long moment he glanced up at Vallerie, his hand slowly closing around the booklet as he caught her gaze. Vallerie involuntarily clenched her teeth as she held his gaze in turn, refusing to avert her eyes despite feeling the layers around her soul peel away under his scrutiny. When he finally broke their mutual stare, the booklet had been swallowed in the confines of his fist. He did not comment as he straightened and strode past her. Vallerie turned around, her gaze trailing his retreating back. Only when he disappeared through the archway into his private chambers did she let out the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She squashed the lingering thoughts of the small, unassuming tome. It was no longer her problem.

However, with the lifting of that particular burden, her other discomforts came surging back in its wake as inevitably as the tide into an empty bay. Giving voice to them with a weary sigh Vallerie turned around and dragged herself further into the sprawling Nubian garden, to the waterfall beyond the patio. She showered lengthily there, savouring the soothing touch of the lukewarm water across her battered frame. It had been a long and tiring day. She washed her hair thoroughly, removing tangles from it until it fell straight and unobstructed past her shoulders - that helmet was a blight in its own right. She cleaned herself from head to toes, scrubbing off the sweat and dirt and blood of the day’s events until her skin was soft and pristine and the myriad of artful tattoos vanning out across her back and limbs were vibrant of colour once more. Only when she had finished this did she reluctantly step away from under the waterfall towards the rock outcrop on which she had put her belongings. She dried herself and rounded off her bathing ritual by reapplying the fragrant oils she had brought. She shrugged on a delicate robe of thin white linen that seemed all but see-through if the light hit it just so.

With a sigh Vallerie leaned a hand against the rock outcrop for support. She might be fresh and clean now, but she still felt like a wreck and thoughts of the small tome would not leave her alone. The profane ritual earlier today had left her mentally drained and the combat after had left her fatigued. She sat down on the rock outcrop but try as she might she could not relax. Not physically and certainly not mentally. Irritated with her own weakness Vallerie reached for her pack, rummaging through its contents until she found her excruciator. Thumbing one of the activator modules a side compartment in the slender tube opened, revealing a collection of syringes and small vials. She picked up a tiny flask labelled ‘Ourare’ in a cramped, spiked handwriting, and one of the thin hollow-point needles, and loaded it with the smallest of fractions of the dark, viscid liquid; less than a quarter droplet. Pulling her left leg up she massaged the hollow of her knee, searching for one of the veins there. With a sharp pang the needle punctured her skin, a drop of blood welling up from the miniscule wound as she pressed it empty. Swiftly she packed her equipment away into her bag, before it would start to affect her. She then leaned back onto her hands, stretching while a warm haze descended across her senses as the neuromuscular blocker ran through her veins, its low concentration forcefully relaxing her tensed body and fatigued mind. Her gaze wandered idly across the lake and garden sprawling out in front of her, no longer truly seeing them as her thoughts drifted away and through the past.

Memnon

... They’d met years ago, decades ago; she couldn’t remember precisely how long it had been. Though exact time was lost on her, her recollections were otherwise perfect, enabling her to recall the smallest minutia from memory. Images of the past came to her with ease and in great detail. They’d met on Mortis Ventis on the western fringes of the Ultima Segmentum, close to the Segmentum Solar. It had not been work that had brought her there, not in the strictest of senses: it had been a personal matter of some import. Mortis Ventis had been a barren, inhospitable world. She remembered the deathly winds, the sharp dust and the flaring sun so vividly that she could see them, feel them, as if she were there once more. She had spotted the lone Astartes on the precipice of the plateau, a looming shadow of midnight blue and blinding gold amid the pale rocks, haloed by the glare of the unrelenting sun as he gazed out across the canyon sprawling below him. She recalled the words she had said in answer to his question: ‘I knew a fool once,’ she had replied. ‘One who sought to correct the mistakes of one of our own. Hunted the radical down, he did, and relieved him from his misery too’. She’d waved a hand in the direction the abomination’s cooling trail led. ‘In gratitude, it wears his skin instead.’

She recalled his retort too, and the static that had crackled across his vox-transmitted voice: 'And so you seek him in turn, and the circle goes round once more.'

'No,' she'd rebuked confidently as she had gazed out across the canyon. 'Today, the cycle will end for I have something that he had not.'

The Astartes’ helmet had cocked sideways at that, the gesture quite ridiculous on the ancient artificer plate. 'And what would that be?' he had asked, and she'd have sworn there to be amusement in his tone.

‘You,’ she had returned, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she glanced sideways and up at him. 'I have heard of your ken, Sorcerer,' she had added, her gaze returning to the canyon before them. 'You heed the Great Serpent's words; follow the tail of the Changer of Ways. This abomination, it will not – cannot – wear _you_. I do not know why you seek to destroy it and frankly I do not care. Though it may best me, it surely will not best you.' She had turned then and started towards the winding, windswept path leading into the canyon. 'One way or another, today the cycle will be broken.' They had destroyed the abomination that had once been her colleague and friend. It had been an end of things, and a beginning too. Even though, at the time, they had not realised that yet.


	2. Chapter 2

Had it truly been chance when, a decade later to the day, her investigation had led her to Advena 2-6 and the dubious establishment in which they were once more to meet? She had recognised him immediately. Although she had never seen his face behind the inscrutable gold of his helmet, she had known with a certainty that defied reason that the figure shrouded in unassuming robes was him. She had abandoned her vigil for her quarry without a second thought, moved by a sudden impulse she still could not explain. She had risen from her seat and strode over with a greeting on her lips. He had been on the run, although those were not the words he had used. From whom, or what, he would not say. Why had she told him of her safe house? Why had she offered its sanctuary so easily? It had seemed right at the time: _quid pro quo_.

The safe house had been a modest apartment warded like an Imperial fortress. It had been located in the unassuming neighbourhood of an unimportant hive on a planet that could have well been the back-end of creation. He had accepted her thoughtless offer and stayed there for a long time. Studying, he said. Hiding, she knew. As time passed her drawing room accrued the flotsam and jetsam of his millennia spend wandering the galaxy. Tomes began to pile high as her bookcases ran out of space and occult paraphernalia laid scattered across the room like forgotten toys. She had entered it but once and had realised on the threshold the depths of the swamp her altruism had led her into. It had been too late to change her mind then; in for a penny, in for a pound - there was nothing she could do about it now that would not one way or another result in her premature and likely highly unpleasant death. As she had been of no mind to lay down her life just yet she had done the only thing she could: she had kept his existence and presence in her sanctuary quieter than the grave.

She remembered it well, as well as she remembered everything: the smell of old parchment and burning wick, the quiet safe for the rustle of paper or the scratch of a quill; the perpetual gloom beyond the door to the drawing room, like the den of a creature that had no need for light. Always, he talked. And if he did not talk, he read. Months came and went, and his presence became a familiar element of her sanctuary. It had happened then, on an evening in every way like all others, for no reason at all. It had been awkward, certainly, but better after that. Easier. Until that, too, became part of the small, static backdrop to her instable life.

He had been there for a long time, so long that when the day came that she found him gone the place had seemed empty for it. The armour stand had been bare of his power armour, the display case in which his weapons had rested vacant. She had supposed those that were after him had finally caught up. She had left then, for the safety of her sanctuary had surely been compromised. God-Emperor willing, all had gone unnoticed.

For years all seemed well. Her career flourished and those that mattered began to take notice of her. Rumours began to circulate that Lord Inquisitor ibn Şahin was once more considering taking on an apprentice, that the Conclave of Lords was voting on inducting a new member, and that she was the unnamed subject of both. When the rumours became reality, the past caught up with her as suddenly and unexpectedly as only with the helping hand of a jealous rival it would. When she had heard of the official accusations she had returned to Sarum immediately. It felt like a lifetime ago now, though she knew it had not been. Not truly.

Lord Inquisitor Şalāḥ-al-Dīn ibn Şahin was the Master of her Ordo, she had thought he would have answers. She had fled home wildly, like a scared child to its parent. She remembered the moment with great clarity. The sharp smell of fresh parchment, the lingering odour of ink not yet spilled. The guttering candles in vainly battling the midnight darkness. The quiet of his office, shattered by her running footfalls across the marble. He had seemed so old then, so tired; so at odds with her radiant memory of him. Grey she did not recall had streaked his kohl black hair, his olive skin marked by lines and scars she had never seen before, dark stains marking his eyes as if he had not slept in days. He had sat behind his desk; imperial, impeccable, and more distant than ever. She had begged him to help her.

‘You know I cannot,’ he had replied to her pleas, and she’d thought she’d heard regret in his stoic tone. A document scroll had lain unrolled before him. She had known the Carta Extremis for what it was at once. His hand had held an elegant eagle-feather quill poised over it, as if frozen in time. A drop of ink had fallen from it, staining the start of a thinly marked line. She had witnessed that pen spell oblivion to entire systems. She had looked up at him, and seen the truth of it in his dark eyes: tonight it would spell hers. ‘It’s not signed yet,’ he had added, softer but determined, his expression hardening. ‘Go. Now.’ She had gone then. She had fled home blindly, like a lost orphan spurned at the door. She had not dared return to her estate, for surely the most eager of her colleagues would already be watching it like hawks. She knew they would find her, sooner or later. Sooner, if she went to retrieve her more important belongings. And she’d rather it be later.

She ran from vague friend to even vaguer acquaintance and disappeared with nothing but her wit and the things she’d had on her person. On the run as she was, she had wondered only then whether or not the wayward Sorcerer’s enemies had brought his end to him. She had not seen him since, but then again the universe was a big place. As colleagues and friends alike turned on her, she ran farther and farther until she realised she was searching for him. She sought, with the resolve of those that had no other options, for a single Astartes amid the hundreds of thousands of planets that comprised the Imperium. And that was assuming he was yet here at all.

In the recent past a mysterious patron had approached her on account of her cover identity as an archaeo-historian and enlisted her to retrieve an ancient artefact. When he had asked if she wished assistance with this, she had seen her chance. She had told the patron that she would see to his task, _if_ the Sorcerer was found. She did not require assistance. At least, not with the recovery of the artefact. In fact, she’d had no intent to go and retrieve it at all, if the Sorcerer showed up.

  


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Time passed unmeasured before her tranquil reminiscence was broken by heavy footfalls across the rock shelf, splashing through the shallow water towards her. A frown gradually crept onto her brow. The footfalls were not accompanied by the perpetual hiss and whine of old servos. She slowly opened her eyes then, as if waking from a deep sleep, and glanced sideways in the direction the sound came from. Memnon was striding across the rock shelf towards her. Instead of his ancient power armour he wore only a shendyt, its belt richly decorated with the elaborate iconography of his Legion. Her gaze lingered on the central vulture motive, she had seen it before. She preferred his normal attire to the all-concealing power armour, for it was much more flattering to his well-built frame. Her gaze kept moving across him as he approached until it became stuck around his waist and her thoughts wandered once more.

The diluted neurotoxin drowned out all background sounds, her own thoughts ringing louder in her ears than the Sorcerer’s words. He was going on and on about the time she spent with Malish when he was busy with his research. What did that matter? Why did he care? She preferred to spend time with him, Memnon, did he not realise that? It was not she who had apparently better things to do than spend idle periods together. She observed his expression, the beginnings of a disapproving frown spoiling his remarkably smooth brow. She knew he masked every crease, every nick - every _flaw_ \- he could find. It lend him an ethereal, timeless attractiveness the others lacked. For where their torn features were as weathered roadmaps to the millennia of warfare that comprised their unnaturally long lives, his were like echoes of an ancient, noble past that existed no more beyond the boundaries of the mind; like a remembered paradise imperfectly reflected across a lone remnant of its broken dream.

She watched his mouth move but his words never reached her ears. He always talked, and if he wasn’t talking… Her thoughts lingered on the time they’d spend together the past weeks. And years ago. And decades ago. She recalled them in great detail, as she recalled everything. She smiled at the memories, at the things they’d done. And slowly the weakened neurtoxin relinquished its hold on her, replaced by natural chemicals all her own.

When her gaze focussed and crossed his, she saw anger and frustration in their depths as his voice finally filled her ears: “…what did Malish want, anyway?” he demanded.

Vallerie slid off the rock she had been sitting on so that she stood in front of him. “You talk too much,” she said softly, her voice husky, interrupting his monologue as she placed her index finger on his lips. Her free hand slid across his waist to the belt that kept his shendyt together, loosening it and causing the garment to drop into the water as she trailed her fingers across his thigh until she found his loins. She reached for his neck and tugged his face downward as she stood up on her toes to kiss him while she wrapped her slim fingers one by one around the base of his shaft. “Far too much,” she whispered against his lips as she ghosted kisses along his broad jawline and leaned closer against him, trapping his awakening need between his loins and her abdomen as she moved her small hand languidly back and forth across his length.

He grunted into their kiss when she softly squeezed his trapped need, his large hands grasping her slender back and firm bum, bracing the soft curves of her body against him as he took control of the kiss.

Vallerie savoured the bruising way he held her too him, all but off the ground. She moaned softly at the demanding touches, increasing her effort as she felt his arousal harden in her hand. “I want you, Memnon,” she whispered as she broke away from their kiss.

His mind, normally so organised and collected, was beginning to spiral down; an unsettling side effect he had initially fought. That had been long ago. He gladly let go of it now. The more she touched him, the more she said such things to him, the more he wanted to force himself on her. The more he wanted to have her, take her, watch her come undone in his hands. He knew he could, they had done it before. The thought kept repeating itself, over and over, like a broken record in his mind. Only when the soft, warm and moist feel of her mouth closed around him did the pivoting thought scatter to the wind.

Vallerie had dropped down to her knees in the shallow water, holding his shaft up as she kissed along its length before closing her lips around it, savouring the warmth and taste of him. She took him in as far as she could and felt him nudge against the back of her throat far sooner than a mortal man would. She moaned softly against it as she touched him with both hands, one stimulating his base and the other cupping and massaging his balls, urging his need to flare.

She felt his hand brush through her hair until it rested at the back of her head, pressing her further and making him slide down her throat. He grunted as she took him deeper, felt the thin muscles of her throat grasp at him. He thrust his hips up, unable to control himself. At her strangled little moan he couldn’t help but do it again, savouring the whimpering sounds he forced out of her as he let her feel the strength of his need.

Vallerie mewled and adjusted, letting him have his way with her until even intermitted breaths became impossible due to his obstructing length. She struggled against his grip as it tightened around the back of her head and pulled him out of her mouth, taking deep draws of air as she regained her breath.

“If you don’t control yourself, you will smother me,” she remarked as she looked up at him along his stomach, rolling her jaw briefly before licking her lips.

A low chuckle escaped Memnon at that and he heavily petted the back of her head. “You can take it,” he replied with a confidence that suggested he knew her capabilities better than she did herself. Vallerie smiled crookedly as he pulled her back to his loin. She obliged and kissed his muscular thigh, up to and across his loins before she took him in once more. He pressed his hips towards her immediately, grunting as his fingers tangled in her hair. His pleasure was swiftly building, the tight embrace of her small mouth and soft throat almost too much to bear. Absorbed in the pleasure she gave him he let his mind drown in the raving sensations.

He leaned heavily with his free hand onto the rock outcrop beside them as he controlled her pace with the other, his large hand bracing against the back of her head as he thrust his hips up. A surprised groan struggled itself from his throat when he felt her little fingertips brush past and then press against his anus. He flinched away instinctively, but she let go of his base and put her arm around his waist, pulling him back with a strength she should hardly possess. It caused him to slide further into her mouth, the brief convulsion of her throat as she struggled not to gag flaring his pleasure. It was in that single unguarded moment that she pressed two of her slender fingers inside him, drawing a moan from him despite himself when she deftly pressed them against places he had not known would spike his need.

Vallerie braced against him tightly, as if she could truly stop him from moving, when she extracted her fingers and reached for the string of shimmering crystals she wore as a belt around her slender waist. It had been made out of the spirit stones they had taken from the eldar they had fought some weeks previous. The strangled noise that escaped him when she pressed one against his anus, and the way he jerked his hips back in rejection, was oddly satisfactory. Vallerie grinned, pleased, and then gagged as she briefly lost control, only causing him to groan in pleasure once again. She moved the spirit stone gently back and forth until it slid in, her fingers moving with it until there was enough room for a second, and a third. He moaned then, seemingly adjusting to the sensation. Exercising all her will to keep her body under control Vallerie kept her arm braced around his waist and watched the muscles in Memnon’s stomach and loins twitch as he pressed himself into her mouth again and again. She allowed him control, she knew he craved it, and enjoyed it when he took it too.

When he couldn’t stand the slow pace any more he leaned his broad back against the rock outcrop, grabbed her chin and held her still with both hands. He heard her mewl and felt her squirm under his hold but he paid it no heed. He knew she could take it. He wanted to find release now and she had offered him the occasion. And despite her tricks, he would not let it pass. Her slender arm clenched around his waist as her fingertips dug into his side, her other hand bracing against his hip as she allowed him to finish himself with rough thrusts. His release pulled a trembling spasm through his bulky frame, his muscles flexing and relaxing as he slid deeper into her throat, cutting her breath the moment he spend himself. He groaned, his honed mind momentarily dissolving into pure pleasure. She swallowed, then gaged, then swallowed again and started coughing as his hold let up and his length slid out. Her breaths were short, irregular little heaves but a smile played around her lips when she glanced up, seemingly quite pleased with herself.

He suppressed a winch as he removed the spirit stones. “Tricksy, you are,” he remarked when his gaze found hers. His dark eyes narrowed slightly as he loomed over her. “I keep forgetting how much so…” Though his tone had been threatening, a hint of amusement played across his features.

“Go on then,” she chuckled, weathering his intent gaze as she looked up at him, her satisfaction more than evident in her voice. “Deny it gave you pleasure. You may not have thought of it but you wanted it all the same.” 

His eyes narrowed further at her words and a slight smirk curved around his lips. “If that is how the game is played…” he replied, his voice trailing off as his gaze ran across her, lingering on the curve of her firm bum. He had not had her that way before. He pulled his gaze back up to her face before she could deduce his intent. A smile had unfurled across Vallerie’s lips by then that usually meant she thought she had the upper hand.


	3. Chapter 3

Memnon leaned towards her and put his hands under her arms, his thumbs nearly meeting across her collar bones as he lifted her up onto her feet. He pressed a demanding kiss to her lips as he moved, dragging her along with him. He then turned her so she faced the rock outcrop, her back towards him as he traced kisses along the soft flesh of her neck. She could feel the press of his lips, the warm moist of his tongue and the smooth solidity of his teeth against her skin, sending a shiver of pleasure down her spine. His hands slipped from under her arms, grasped at her slender hips and took in the shape of her bum. His fingertips trailed along the inner curve of the firm flesh and he lightly ran them past her gender as he leaned over her shoulder and kissed her deeply, swallowing the little sounds escaping her in response to his touch. He pressed one of his fingers past her then, wetting it against her soft gender before moving it further along to her bum. Gently he tested her lower entrance before pressing it inside, savouring the strangled whimper coming from her at the intrusion. Her little bum clenched tightly around his digit in response and a groan escaped him at the thought of feeling that firm hold elsewhere.

 _Soon_ , he told himself as he worked his finger inside her, kneading one of her butt cheeks with his free hand before he spread it away to give him more space to manoeuvre. A tremble pulled through her light frame when he pressed another finger into her tight bum. After a few more thrusts he retrieved his digits, moving his hands back to her bum and squeezing it firmly before sinking onto his haunches behind her. He spread her cheeks apart and looked at her for a long moment; at the way his fingertips pressed into the firm flesh, at the inviting look of her sex. He pulled her a fraction closer to him, causing her to bend slightly and put her hands against the rock for support. He leaned towards her and kissed her gender once, then twice, before caressing the soft, pink flesh with his tongue. Vallerie whimpered and squirmed in his solid grasp at the intimate touch. He tightened his hold on her to keep her in place, pulling her hips up closer and tilting them further for easier access as his tongue invaded her.

He closed his eyes and savoured the sweet taste as at the far corners of his consciousness images stirred, shards of memories and thoughts belonging to Vallerie, brought forward by the temporarily shared medium of her flesh. As always, he shoved them aside, for he was far too caught up in the present to examine her past. He explored the familiar structures of her insides as if he had never done so before, enjoying how she squirmed in his grasp and how she voiced little whimpers as much as he had the first time. When he felt her press back against his touch he smiled against her skin, satisfied she had caved to his ministrations. He tilted her hips slightly more and used his thumbs to spread her entrance open, watching how her insides clenched and relaxed with satisfaction.

“Memnon, please… don’t stop,” she begged as he sat down and pulled her with him onto his lap. The shallow water reached only just below his gender. She shifted as she leaned her back against his chest, looking up at him as she felt his erect length press underneath her, nudging quite a ways past the inside of her left thigh. “I need you,” she moaned softly, pushing her hips down against the hard flesh as her hands gripped at his muscular thighs beside her. Their gazes crossed and Memnon flexed his hips despite himself, enjoying the moist warmth of her along his length. He resisted the urge though. Instead, he leaned sideways to snatch up the spirit stones from where they had fallen into the water. However, they were just out of even his considerable reach.

“Memnon…” she whimpered at his inaction, arching her back and tilting herself more against him before reaching a hand down between them.

“Shh…” he shushed as he caught her wandering hand by the wrist before hunting after her other hand, which had moved to replace the trapped one. Holding both her wrists within his grasp he brought his hand to her chest and held it there. “Not so fast.” He shifted as he spoke and tugged her knees so that her legs slipped beside his thighs, making her straddle him. She squirmed in his grasp but he easily held her put. He focussed his mind and used his telekinetic gift to reach for the spirit stones. They rose from the water and floated towards him at his command, dropping into his opened hand.

Memnon leaned forward and brought his face down beside Vallerie’s. She turned her head sideways and kissed his cheek and jaw, and tried to reach for his mouth but it was too far. An amused smile played around his lips as he held the spirit stones up on his palm in front of them. “You know what these are, don’t you?” he asked, his voice low and his dark eyes hooded.

“O-of course,” Vallerie replied, clearly struggling against the need clouding her mind. When it became obvious he was actually waiting for an answer, she added: “It’s a… psychic trap, captures the ‘soul’ of these… Xenos… after their death. Harbours it… from the Great D-Devourer.”

“M-hm,” he returned, more a sound than anything, as he started folding his fingers around them. Holding them within his fist he freed his index and middle finger, and brushed them down the curves of Vallerie’s hips and inward towards her loins. He felt her press down against him when he ran his fingers across her gender, his fingertips slipping past the moist, warm flesh. A whimper escaped Vallerie when he guided the first of the spirit stones against her entrance and then slowly inside, soon followed by the others. She squirmed and tugged at her wrists but his hand had closed around them like a vise. He pulled her tightly against his chest as his once more free hand wandered briefly across her body, cupping her breast and lightly tugging her nipple while kissing the curve of her jaw and neck.

“They are not dormant in ‘death’, you know,” Memnon remarked then, and it took Vallerie a moment to remember what it was they had been talking about. As he spoke, Memnon dropped his free hand to her stomach, brushing past the flat muscles there before pressing his palm flat against her skin. Using his telekine powers he reached for the spirit stones through her thin flesh and moved them slowly further inside her, before pulling them gently back. Vallerie tried to reply but his manipulation of the crystals made it incredibly difficult to concentrate. They pressed where she wished to feel them, as if he could read her mind. It was only then that she realised that he quite probably could and did.

“I… M-Memnon, please,” she whimpered, trying to form a sentence and failing. She could feel the warm breath of his chuckle past her cheek. 

“Listen,” he replied only, and as he said so she could feel the familiar boundaries of her mind shift and open, like a window found in a wall where one thought none existed. And through the window sounds came, voices that weren’t her own. She could not understand their words, the lilting tongue as foreign to her as breathing water, but they were words flung in despair and outrage – that much was obvious from their tone. A shiver ran down her spine unbidden. Behind her, yet somehow seeming so very distant, she heard Memnon make a soothing noise as he trailed kisses along her neck and shoulder.

“They can feel you; your presence, your pleasure,” he muttered as he nipped at the edge of her ear. “And mine,” he added, almost as an afterthought, and with his words came sensations that were not her own – the desire to have her, to give her pleasure and take his own from within her. A tremble pulled through Vallerie’s body, the intensity of his ill-contained need pushing her release closer. Within moments, it became all-consuming. Any and every notion of the world around her left her as she teetered on drowning in an ocean of pleasure. But then it suddenly stopped, and the world grinded to a terrible, shattering halt.

“N-no, no please!” she whined, thrashing as she felt the spirit stones move from within her, taking her pleasure with them. Memnon braced his grip on her, savouring the raw strength of her despair, and anger. Her struggling pushed at his control. When she whined pitifully and forcefully pressed herself against his loin, his breath hitched despite himself as his need flared sharply. He gritted his teeth and bridled it down. Not yet.

After a moment he let go of her wrists and sat up on his knees, shoving her from his lap and causing her to splash into the shallow water onto her own knees. He leaned down across her onto his left hand, forcing her forward into a similar position with his weight and a rough tug of his free hand. She easily fit beneath him, her slim back pressed along his chest as he trapped her slight frame with his own.

“How much do you want it?” he asked as he leaned his head down beside hers, his voice low and strained with need. It was becoming incredibly difficult to control himself, but he would play her little game and win it too. She moaned in answer as her needy gaze crossed his and when she leaned back and pressed herself invitingly against him he almost gave in. He shifted, still leaning on one hand, and hooked his free arm underneath her hips, lifting her slightly and trapping her bum against his solid abdomen.

“How much?” he demanded, his voice hoarse as he pressed the tip of his member against her entrance, steeling himself against the temptation to thrust in.

“P-please…” Vallerie moaned, and he could feel the muscles across her abdomen flex and relax as she tried to push further against him than his hold on her waist allowed. She could barely form coherent thoughts; her need had been stretched too far. It had been denied too long, it was driving her insane. She needed him so very badly. 

A slight smirk tugged at Memnon’s concentrated expression at her pleas and he gently pressed his hips forward. A strangled chortle escaped him when Vallerie gasped and then groaned in annoyance when he pressed his member up and prodded it into her small bum rather than where she obviously preferred it. Groaning he pushed further inside, the embrace nearly too tight. Vallerie whimpered almost pathetically as she felt his thick flesh stretch her up, her slight frame trembling in his hold due to the unexpected intrusion, and the pain it spiked through her pleasure. He moved within her slowly, deliberately, allowing her time to adjust as he kept his own need in check. He knew very well he could mortally injure her if he lost it.

With time, Vallerie’s little cries turned into little whimpers and then faint moans. His presence inside her was still uncomfortable but no longer entirely without pleasure. The gentle prods against her insides stimulated her indirectly, reawakened her previously thoroughly smothered need. He let go of her waist then, easing her back down onto her knees as a suppressed grunt escaped him because the action pulled her partially off of him. He leaned on both hands once more and folded them across her smaller ones, a thumb and index finger closing around each of her slender wrists. She glanced sideways and up at him in response, a question shimmering to the surface of her eyes. His grip locked a fraction before he reburied himself inside her, a groan escaping him at the broken cry it tore from her. The way her expression shattered and her tight bum flexed around him all but pushing him off the edge.

Memnon continued to buck himself inside of her, savouring how she strained against him; little cries of discomfort mingling with whimpers for more. He leaned against her, his broad torso pressed to her slim back. His head hung low beside hers, his breath coming in heavy draws as he bucked against her, losing himself in the endless repetition of his motion as the smouldering embers in the pit of his stomach roared into fire. Until it finally overwhelmed him, and he buried himself inside her as far as he could, breaking his rigidly conditioned mind for an exquisite moment into complete, sense-numbing ecstasy as he spilled himself within her.

Vallerie whimpered as she felt his generous amount of seed spill inside her, arching against him as she savoured the sensation, so much stronger than with a mortal man. When he remained still after his release, she shifted and moaned softly, her gaze searching for his. They couldn’t stop yet, she needed him. She needed more of him. 

Memnon’s breathing came in heavy bursts in the wake of his initial pleasure, the pulse of his two hearts thundering in his ears like pagan war drums. He struggled to control himself, calm himself. He was still hard; her little rear had throttled him, his release incomplete. He could still feel the need to have her linger just below the surface of his once more collected thoughts. She squirmed below him, her insides flexing around him. Her actions tore at his slipping control. He had not been able to enter her entirely, not this way. He knew she would be far more accommodating the other way around, and as he thought of it his desire fixated on it. He wanted to have her, all of her, and he wanted to make her feel _all_ of him. He knew he could, they’d managed before.

Unable to keep herself up Vallerie turned and lay down on her back when he pulled himself from within her. She panted a little, her slim chest heaving under the rapid breaths and her lips slightly parted. Her eyes were hooded, still full of desire. When she spread her legs a fraction and reached a hand up to him, he could not deny her. He slipped a hand behind her neck to support her head as he lay down against her, leaning upon his elbow. He knew his full weight was too great for her slight frame to bear. He did not want to hurt her, not seriously.

She moaned and reached for him when he lay down, wrapping both her arms around his muscular neck as she kissed him and spread her legs further to accommodate his broader frame. When he returned her kiss she moved one hand away from his neck. Her touch trailed down his back, to his side and around his waist to slip between their bodies. He groaned against her lips when her slender fingers closed around his still erect length, the gentle touch so light it was almost painful. Her touch lingered a moment, but then she took a firmer hold of him and guided him inside her, mewling contently as she felt him fill her. He moaned at the warm, smooth embrace of her insides and moved his free hand to her hips to hold her in place as he pressed himself further. She was far shorter of stature than him and so he had to arch his back to be able to press his hips to hers. His grip on her hip and the back of her neck tightened a fraction of a second before he took control and bucked the rest of his length inside of her, tearing a moan from him and a cry from her as she arched against him, her fingertips digging into the muscles around his neck, her nails drawing small crescents into his skin. He slowly pulled back out as he brought his hand up from her waist to her cheek, stroking it briefly as he leaned his face so close to hers that their noses touched. A smile played across his features as he slipped his arm underneath her to support her back, his large hand bracing against the base of her neck while the other still cradled her finely featured head.

“You are mine, now,” he muttered between their lips, and smothered her reply with a rough kiss as he thrust back into her welcoming embrace, savouring the tension that rolled through her body as he swallowed her cry. Incapable to withstand the strength of his need Vallerie quickly lost control of herself and the situation. She could feel him reach deeply within her, further with every thrust. Further than any mortal man ever would, ever could. His muscles flexed and turned to solid steel under the effort; she could feel the raw force of his passion take its toll on her body. She did not care, all she wanted was more. 

Again and again he bucked into her, his mind unravelling further and further with each embrace as he finally let go of his need, drowning in the physical act as suppressed instincts took over his neatly conditioned mind. Everything but the need to couple, to find release, left him, and he bend his entire being to it. The slight, trembling frame underneath him and the sweet cries his thrusts pulled from her pushed his desire, drove him to the brink of sensual insanity. When it finally overwhelmed him a broken moan tore itself from his throat as the last remnants of his control fell away, and he forced himself within her with the inhuman strength his Astartes body afforded him. Only now did he meet resistance deep within her, and it shattered his mind into oblivion as he spend himself, her broken cry as music to his ears. 

In the wake of his release he could feel her arch against him, could feel her tremble as she clenched around him, her cheek pressed against his as her release overcame her shortly after his own. In that moment, his name fell from her lips all but by itself. “S-Sobek,” she whimpered, her thoughts scattering to the wind as her pleasure took her.

He froze, and his mind struggled against the satisfied haze that pervaded it. He glanced down at her, all soft flesh and numb limbs in his grasp as she came down from her high. Her eyes were closed, her expression content. His eyes narrowed slightly as he scrutinised her. She had said his name, his first name. She had said it, he was sure of it. How had she learned it? He had never told her. She had never asked.

“Valle…” he said softly, his voice hoarse. He let go of the base of her neck and shoulders, and nudged her chin as he turned her face towards him with the hand still holding the back of her head. Slowly, her eyes fluttered open. She smiled faintly. “Hmm?” 

“What did you just say?” he asked, his gaze searching for hers. When their eyes met, he found only confusion in their blue depths.

“What?” she returned, frowning. He reached psychically for her mind but it told him nothing, it was still a mess in the wake of their union. Her confusion was genuine. When she saw the frown crease his brow, she pushed herself up onto her elbows, her head cocking sideways as she willed the pleasant haze to go away. Something was wrong. “What is it?” she asked as she observed him.

Memnon shook his head. “Nothing,” he replied curtly as he pulled himself from within her and sat up. His mind sped down the possibilities. What had just happened? How had she learned his name? Had he opened her mind too far? Her face appeared in front of him, that little crease wrinkling her nose, her eyes searching across his face for an answer. 

“That sure sounded like something,” she replied in that typical tone more suited to Inquisitor Desjardin than the woman he knew as Vallerie.

“It was nothing,” he returned firmly, and roughly pulled her too him. “Come here.”

She smiled at that and complied, as he had known she would. He watched her curl up against him, on his lap, her slender arms slipping around his waist as she laid her head to rest on his chest. He did not understand this need for physical proximity after the act, but he knew she wanted it and hoped it would distract her. It did. He put his arms around her and returned her hug, keeping his strength in check once more. She nuzzled his chest and muttered something his preoccupied mind didn’t quite catch. He made an agreeing noise and that appeared to be enough.

As he held her he stared at the discolorations slowly appearing at the base of her neck and shoulders, across her hips and bum, and even on her slender wrists. He could clearly see the outline of his fingertips in some of them. He frowned and mentally scolded himself. He had to be more careful with her, in more ways than one.

  


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End file.
